We had several announcements this month, from content updates to events for each Red Orchestra, Rising Storm, and Heroes of the West! If you missed attending our monthly meeting you can catch up on all of the details in our Videocast of it below brought to you by Bruhaker, who also voiced the intro for this month. Unless otherwise requested, we will no longer offer podcasts, as videocasting with Discord has become a more appropriate medium.

Speaking of Discord, if you haven't already, join us for voice and text chat on our Discord! We've found it to be the best way to keep the community together and active with a no-hassle setup. You can use it on your browser, phone, or desktop and it even supports an in-game overlay to see who is speaking while you butcher Ivans and Fritzes.

A still upcoming event for this month is the exciting 32v32 Battle of the Volga campaign scrim this Saturday, Feb 25th, at 9:00PM ET between the Bloodbath Community and the 2nd Rangers Battalion. Registration is still open and all are encouraged to continue signing up, as we can expect no-shows, late-comers, or early-leavers, and it's always useful to have extras to rotate people in and out with. Some people will even rotate out voluntarily.

The Bloodbath Collection has also received an update, specifically updates to Odessa, Kaukasus, and Zhytomir. Further, the maps Butovo and Der Iwan Berg have been added to the collection. New maps are planned to be added early next month, as well. Be sure to unsub, resub, and wait for the "Download Complete" in your in-game menu to update your files!

Finally, if you support all that Bloodbath stands for and offers, we encourage you to Donate so that we can continue providing for the community and pressing it forward. Remember, we're an entirely community-operated and funded server; without your support we would not be here today!

Thank you for being a part of this wonderful community, for without which not, it wouldn't be.

This summer has seen many good bloodbaths thus far, but there's still more to come! Our largest priority as of late has been to bring new maps to the front and reinvigorate the battlefield. You may recognize some of these maps from the original Red Orchestra, and we've been able to update and bring them to near-completion as release candidates.

Another big event this past month was the community meeting we held which had over 70 people in attendance on Discord! Clearly, we can all take pride in having an active and participatory community in what is now nearly a five-year-old game. There were many announcements and discussions at the event so be sure to give the podcast a listen!

And as announced at the meeting and to be in-line with our philosophy on transparency, we'll also be providing Monthly Budget Reports from now on so that the community can feel a closer sense of ownership and responsibility towards the servers. Remember, it can't be stressed enough that Bloodbath is community-run and funded. It relies not only on your participation but on your financial support too. So if you truly enjoy and believe in the service that we aim to provide, please Donate Today! We're all in this together.

Finally, if you haven't already, come join us on our Discord. It's been a fantastic tool for bringing people together for friendship and community-bonding than we have ever achieved with TeamSpeak or voice chat on the servers. Even if you're a micless pleb, you can still enjoy the text chat just as well.

Thank you everyone, and we'll be seeing you on the newest, bloodiest front!

This past month saw some of the smallest crowds in the overall game population for the year so far, due mostly to all the student gamers busy with school finals and projects. But Bloodbath remained alive as ever, having adapted by changing strategy to focus solely on the Stalingrad server and managed to keep two of its servers full each night. Even our rankings halved to where we're now on the cusp of having two servers in the top 15!

Bloodbath also celebrated its 4th anniversary this past month, having hosted an array of the most ridiculous, absurd-- but fun-- maps in Red Orchestra 2 in a closed-event for all its server regulars. Suffice to say, we set a world record for the most people (72) in a photograph for Candy Land! All those that gave their lives in the epic battles for Cupcake Mountain and Rainbow Bridge shan't be forgotten...

And with the advent of summer crowds soon to descend upon us, Bloodbath is prepared: we will launch our Summer Offensive this coming month by once again filling our Rising Storm server for all its fans! We will further be adding new custom maps into the rotation to freshen things up a bit. And lastly, we will be hosting new events, such as Historical Rotation and Campaign Nights and, quite possibly, a monthly party event (this next one is rumored to introduce a Capture the Flag game mode!) Our friends in the Heroes of the West team will also allow Bloodbath to beta test their newest and upcoming maps too!

As always, you can listen to our monthly meeting podcast to get in on the latest happenings here at Bloodbath.

As the Bloodbath player base continues to grow, so does its reputation and reach. This past month, the group has gone through much rapid growth and its begun to show in the server populations. This past month, all the servers have reached their highest rankings to date, with even our Heroes of the West server reaching eighth globally and still climbing. And the group itself has gained another thousand players this past month alone. Not to mention, we were even in the spotlight recently for a community Twitch stream too.

To accommodate the growth and increasing influence we have on the community, the admin team has expanded to provide more coverage of our North American time zones. Further, a European admin team is being assembled to accommodate the demands for events and content-delivery suitable for European time zones.

What more, Bloodbath has now entered the landscape in Squad and has launched a sister community page and admin team of its own to foster growth within that community as well.

We remain committed to delivering the best experience we can for players, and raising the game to its best potential. For without which not, this community's success would not be if not for the regulars, dedicated crew, and patrons of the servers.

The other night, the Bloodbath crew held a team meeting where it discussed the group's philosophy, mission, and future. If you're keen to know where we are now and where we're heading as a community, you may listen to the podcast of the meeting here.

Bloodbath has teamed up with the Heroes of the West crew to bring you North America's first server for this mod. From here you can battle as either the Germans or Americans for Victory in Europe!

As part of the server's inauguration, the Heroes of the West crew will be hosting a launch event on the server this Tuesday evening at 8pm EST. Be sure to subscribe to the Heroes of the West mod on the Steam workshop here:

What once began as a small community project in 2012 under the leadership of Horse, this community group garnered the reputation for being a unique source for public scrims of rarely seen CD and S&D game modes and large-scale country battles between nations.

In the summer of 2015, a new leaf turned for the Bloodbath group as the entire RO unit from the well-known Merrill's Marauders clan disbanded to come work on the Bloodbath project. Today, it is now a provider of three public servers for RO, RS, and HotW, as well as an event server for scrims and CD and S&D nights.

If you're interested in helping to formulate the most ideal RS/RO server to play on, join the Bloodbath Steam community group and share your ideas!